The world of triathlon, gadgets, and award travel

Google Assistant is Here

I woke up Saturday morning to find a special notification on my phone.

Google Assistant is here for OnePlus 3T users! Or at least some of us, but definitely for my phone.

My post about Google announcing the Assistant was on its way to Android phones running 6.0 Marshmallow and 7.0 Nougat mentioned the Google Assistant is activated in a couple ways. One way is by saying “Ok Google” like I would activate Google Now.

The other, and less battery draining method, is doing a long-press on the home button. This action already had a function on the OnePlus 3T so I wasn’t sure if Google Assistant would be activated this way.

Well, long-pressing the home button activates Google Assistant. Initially, Google Assistant simply listens for me to say something like “How old are you?” to which it will either respond to my question or open an app.

Screen search of Google Assistant notifiction

Example of a conversation with Assistant

Before Assistant was available on my phone, long-pressing did a search of whatever was on my screen, and this function is still available with Assistant, you just have to scroll up after activating Assistant.

Google announced the official start of rolling out the Google Assistant on March 2 and my phone didn’t get the Assistant until March 10. If your phone is running Android 6.0 or 7.0 but doesn’t have the Assistant yet, don’t fret, it will be available on your phone soon enough.

Even if you have a UI or OS from the phone company (like ZenUI on ZenFones) you will still get the update because this is an update to Google Play Services instead of an update to the Android OS.